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Morning Briefing: housing associations should be offered ‘financial incentives’ to adopt offsite
Housing associations and councils should be offered financial incentives by the government to build new homes using modern methods of construction (MMC), a leading trade body has said
In a new policy paper, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) urged the government to do more to support MMC to tackle the housing crisis.
RICS said the faster build time with modular housing is beneficial to the social housing sector as it boosts cashflow from rent as properties get delivered sooner.
The body also noted that because MMC is more adaptable it can be used to meet specialist requirements for disabled and older people.
Yesterday a top civil servant outlined the challenges facing the country in delivering on the UK’s overall current housebuilding target.
Melanie Dawes, permanent secretary at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, admitted to MPs the target is “very ambitious” and “challenging".
“We have got a pretty comprehensive strategy but wouldn’t say at this stage that we have all the ingredients we need to get the 300,00 on the table,” she told the Public Accounts Committee, in comments reported by Public Finance.
“In particular, we don’t have information yet on our capital budgets beyond this Spending Review period,” Ms Dawes said.
On the 300,000 target, she added: “It is very ambitious – the country has not achieved these levels of housebuilding since before the Second World War.
“It’s very challenging but we have seen some early signs that are very encouraging.”
Meanwhile, the Daily Mail has stoked the fire over Help to Buy by highlighting figures showing nearly 9,000 buyers using the scheme had incomes in excess of £100,000.
These were among a total of 92,007 families using the scheme with incomes over £50,000, the paper reported.
It also flagged that of 210,964 households to use the scheme since its launch six years ago, around a fifth were not first-time buyers.
Elsewhere, a BBC investigation has revealed that a number of new homes built by Persimmon and Bellway have potentially serious fire safety issues.
Properties built by the firms were sold with missing or incorrectly installed fire barriers, it was reported. In some examples, it’s believed a lack of fire barriers contributed to the spread of fires that have destroyed homes, the BBC said.
Persimmon and Bellway both said they were addressing the issues.
Finally, workloads for small and medium-sized (SME) construction firms have fallen for the first time in six years, new figures show.
The Federation of Master Builders, which compiled the data, said three years of political uncertainty has taken its toll. In addition, nearly nine out of 10 SME builders believe material prices will increase in the next six months.
On social media
The UK government was also the first to make a commitment to all new homes being zero carbon from 2016 (and then government cancelled that in 2015)...#ukhousing #housingt.co/BilbPAuMRz t.co/6NiSaHjagt
— Noble Francis (@NobleFrancis)The UK government was also the first to make a commitment to all new homes being zero carbon from 2016 (and then government cancelled that in 2015)...#ukhousing #housinghttps://t.co/BilbPAuMRz https://t.co/6NiSaHjagt
— Noble Francis (@NobleFrancis) April 29, 2019
